Creative giving part 3

I haven’t managed to come up with a creative new idea for helping the tsunami aid appeals, so I’m going to copy Michele Agnew. From now until midnight Sunday, I’ll give one $A to the Australian Red Cross tsunami appeal for each comment[1] I receive on this post, up to a maximum of 1000.

To add a tiny element of novelty, I’m inviting others to join the effort by sponsoring this offer at whatever rate they can afford. You can work out your maximum exposure from the limit, for example, if you offer 5 cents a comment, you’re promising to give up to $50.

If you’re interested, please send me an email at j dot quiggin at uq dot edu dot au. I’ll record it in the updates with your name, pseudonym or anonymously as you prefer. When the appeal is over, I’ll write and tell you how much you’ve promised. Feel free to nominate a charity of your choice.

So we’re up to $3.45 per comment, and the total amount raised is nearly $500, with most of the day still left to come.

It’s particularly good to see lots of visitors from Tim Blair’s blog – a reminder that, whatever our disagreements, we can all work together at a time like this.

In the comments, Tim has offered $100 if I shave my beard off. That’s nowhere near enough, but I’m eager to secure Tim’s money for the cause so I’m making a counteroffer in the spirit of national unity and cash for comment. If Tim will give $100, I’ll write a 200 word post saying exclusively good things about John Howard. I’m willing to increase the amount proportionally for further pledges from Tim’s (or my) readers, until I run out of good things to say.

Update 10:30am We’re well over 200 comments now, and thanks to the generosity of cosponsors, within sight of the original target of $1000, with the capacity to raise a lot more

wmmbb has offered 20c a comment, up to a total of 500
Mark Bahnisch has offered 10c a comment

I’m really impressed by all of this. Quite a few cosponsors have offered more, in relation to their means, than my starting offer. This is one area where I’m unreservedly in favour of competition, and I’m already thinking about my next move.

I’d also like to thank everyone who’s linked to the post. In particular, I now have a full set of Tims, at least among the blogs I read regularly: Tim Blair, Tim Dunlop, Tim Lambert and Tim T have all sent visitors this way. For any other Tims or non-Tims who want to link, there’s still more than 12 hours to go.

That puts us over $4 a comment, and with well over 300 comments, we’ve easily passed the original goal of $1000. But there’s still plenty of money on the table, so keep the comments coming in.

I forgot to mention it when I put this post up, and I’m not going to worry too much about it today, but this is a PG blog, so no more coarse language, please. Double entendres and dirty jokes are fine, as long as they’re funny.

I’ve had the first taker on the Howard challenge. “2dogs” has sent in his $50 to the Red Cross, and emailed me the receipt, earning 100 words of sincere praise from me for John Howard, to be published as soon as I’ve tallied up the donations and tied myself to the keyboard. Come on Howard-lovers, and set me a real challenge. I could write that much defending Don Rumsfeld, and have done so. 1000 words in praise of Howard might give me some trouble.

And here’s the ad I promised Nicholas Gruen, who’s agreed to match my donations. If you click here you can see a further generous offer from him.

Update 6pm We’ve passed 400 comments and raised more than $1500. Looking at the current pace, there should be more than 500 comments by the time the appeal ends, but probably not many more than 600. A number of cosponsors have limited their contributions to an upper bound of 500 comments, thereby giving themselves a fair bit of certainty. Now I’m appealing for some risk-tolerant types to cosponsor the remaining comments, starting at number 501. Why don’t you put in, say, 50 cents a comment. There’s a small risk that you might be hit for $250, but in the absence of a last-minute surge, it’s more likely to be around $50.

Update 10:30pm

Jack Strocchi and Claire Rodda have promised 10c per comment up to 500

Down and Out in SÃ i GÃ²n has promised 50c for each comment over 500. At this stage, it looks as if he(?) will get off cheaply, so let’s have a flood of last-minute comments.

Final Midnight has come to Queensland, and we ended up with 470 comments. I’m off to bed now, but in the morning I’ll send my own contribution, rounded up to $500, and advise commenters how much they’ve promised to pay.

I am all for these stunts. They keep the issue alive and are thus effective in maximising the final amount of aid that will be received by the victims. And that is the only matter of importance. (Also this type of public challenge giving does not exclude any prior private donation that may have already been made.)

It is pleasing to see that you are supporting your fellow Australians John. I praise your efforts and look forward to seeing the number of comments can be left on this web site. I’d almost propose to you if you weren’t a leftie (I’d also consider it if you have a shave…. otherwise you would remind me too much of Janette.)

A more interesting question would be to find out what percentage of the gazillions people have freely given will actually be spent helping victims and what percentage will enhance the bank accounts of “leaders” from all sides of the globe.

Run a pool and let bloggers and posters pick a number. I’ll start the ball rolling with 97% = leaders; 2% = lost in the mail; 1% = actual relief aid to victims.

erp – definite darkside reader – shits himself that maybe not every cent will go where it’s most required. Better not to give then. Better someone dies than some aid truck driver somewhere treats himself to a cold Bintang on the way.

wbb – I don’t have a problem with the truck driver, but more with the talking mouths jetting around the world and filling up expensive hotel rooms. But a little due diligence in selecting your favorite aid group should go a long way in reducing that loss.

I’ve never left a comment just for the sake fo leaving a comment before, but how can I resisist? All I can say is “good job”. It’s incredible to see the generosity of the western world when disaster hits.

We’re about 1/12 of the way there. Fortunately, my office does most of its work on Sundays, so I’ll photocopy the page for “tomorrow”. (I’m about four hours behind you, so it’s still Saturday. Barely.)

Only $3.10, not $4.10. My previous comment wasn’t as valuable as I’d hoped. At least now I’ve put up two two comments! Though after I didn’t notice the original addition error, others might not trust my ability to count to two either…)